FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT PARENTHOOD - PAGE 5

Brian Doyle and Amy Derstine were 16, in love, inseparable, and in what euphemistically used to be called trouble. "It was a matter of hormones gone wild," said Linda Scheckenbach, frankly. "We used to have to pry them apart in the halls. " Scheckenbach is the home-economics teacher who supervises the teen-parenting program and day- care center at Souderton Area High School. Scheckenbach's job is to help students whose adolescent sense of immunity from consequence has failed to protect them from parenthood.

Constant whitewater. It's a voguish phrase among management gurus, used to express the sense that placid times are a thing of the past for corporations and careers, that frothing turmoil should be considered routine. To survive constant whitewater, the gurus advise, institutions and individuals need to hone certain skills: adjusting nimbly to ever-changing terrain; managing unyielding stress; maintaining, amid constant jostling, a clear-eyed view of ultimate goals. Execs pay thousands for such advice.

MICHELLE Malkin's Dec. 8 column, "Planned Parenthood's Privileged Predators," utterly and irresponsibly misrepresents Planned Parenthood and www.teenwire.com, our award-winning health Web site for young people. Planned Parenthood, the medical community and the majority of Americans agree that young people need medically accurate, age-appropriate health information. We lag tragically behind other developed nations in ensuring that our young people have the information and services they need to prevent pregnancy and protect their health.

When the offices were at an unobtrusive brick building in downtown West Chester, people stopped in only occasionally. But now that Planned Parenthood of Chester County has moved its administrative offices to newly renovated quarters at 8 S. Wayne St., several people drop in daily seeking counseling, guidance, printed material or videotapes from the expanded health and human sexuality library. "I'm surprised at the difference a location could make," executive director Edgar Huffman said.

After opening last Wednesday amid protests by anti-abortionists, the new Planned Parenthood clinic in Edgewater Park had a relatively quiet first day of business Thursday, attending to only a handful of clients. The protesters had not returned by late Thursday, and according to Edgewater Police Chief Tony Francesco, "they're probably not going to bother this place much. " Like Planned Parenthood of Greater Camden, which opened the Burlington County branch, the new clinic will not perform abortions.

WASHINGTON - Republicans portray Planned Parenthood as primarily focused on performing abortions and - intentionally or not - using taxpayer dollars to do it. Not so, say Democrats, who counter that the group's 800-plus health centers nationwide provide an array of services, from screenings for cancer to testing for sexually transmitted diseases. Abortion is just one of many procedures, and the law bars Planned Parenthood from using tax money for it. In the budget maelstrom that had threatened to partly shut the federal government Friday stood Planned Parenthood Federation of America, a 90-year-old organization now part of a decades-long congressional battle over abortion.

More than 150 members of the Greater Camden Area Chapter of Planned Parenthood last night celebrated the organization's 50th anniversary at a banquet and heard praise for their success from the president of the national family-planning group. But they had to walk past about 200 anti-abortion supporters - many with their children in tow - who had gathered to protest the celebration in the lane leading to the Tavistock County Club, where the banquet was held. About 20 anti-abortion organizations from New Jersey and Delaware shouted slogans such as "Up with Christ, down with abortion" through bullhorns while small children held candles.

IN 1985, a 35-year-old Samuel Alito wanted to move from assistant to the solicitor general to deputy assistant to the attorney general (in the office of legal counsel) in the Justice Department. Ed Meese was Ronald Reagan's attorney general. It was Morning in America time. As part of his application, Alito provided a qualifications statement, where, in a single-spaced, page-and-a-half narrative, the now-federal judge spelled out his conservative bona fides. In less than two pages, you get a keen insight into the man now nominated for the Supreme Court.

WASHINGTON - President Obama vowed Friday to join Planned Parenthood in fighting against what he said are efforts by states to turn women's health back to the 1950s, before the Supreme Court legalized abortion nationwide, and singled out the GOP-governed states of North Dakota and Mississippi for criticism. "When politicians try to turn Planned Parenthood into a punching bag, they're not just talking about you," Obama said, becoming the first sitting president to address the abortion-rights group in person.

Urging the New Jersey Supreme Court to uphold a lower-court ruling awarding William and Elizabeth Stern the child once known as Baby M, attorneys for the Sterns yesterday told the court that it was "abundantly clear that the benefits of surrogate parenthood outweigh the speculative potential risks. " "As a result of a new reproductive technology, William and Elizabeth Stern have experienced the joys of parenthood," said a 134-page legal brief filed here on the Sterns' behalf. "Their daughter, a product of their commitment to life and exercise of procreational liberty, has been welcomed into their loving home.